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:microscope: A Ruby library for carefully refactoring critical paths.
https://github.com/github/scientist

refactoring ruby rubygem scientist

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:microscope: A Ruby library for carefully refactoring critical paths.

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# Scientist!



A Ruby library for carefully refactoring critical paths. [![Build Status](https://github.com/github/scientist/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/github/scientist/actions/workflows/ci.yml)



## How do I science?



Let's pretend you're changing the way you handle permissions in a large web app. Tests can help guide your refactoring, but you really want to compare the current and refactored behaviors under load.



```ruby

require "scientist"



class MyWidget

  def allows?(user)

    experiment = Scientist::Default.new "widget-permissions"

    experiment.use { model.check_user(user).valid? } # old way

    experiment.try { user.can?(:read, model) } # new way



    experiment.run

  end

end

```



Wrap a `use` block around the code's original behavior, and wrap `try` around the new behavior. `experiment.run` will always return whatever the `use` block returns, but it does a bunch of stuff behind the scenes:



* It decides whether or not to run the `try` block,

* Randomizes the order in which `use` and `try` blocks are run,

* Measures the durations of all behaviors in seconds,

* Compares the result of `try` to the result of `use`,

* Swallow and record exceptions raised in the `try` block when overriding `raised`, and

* Publishes all this information.



The `use` block is called the **control**. The `try` block is called the **candidate**.



Creating an experiment is wordy, but when you include the `Scientist` module, the `science` helper will instantiate an experiment and call `run` for you:



```ruby

require "scientist"



class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def allows?(user)

    science "widget-permissions" do |experiment|

      experiment.use { model.check_user(user).valid? } # old way

      experiment.try { user.can?(:read, model) } # new way

    end # returns the control value

  end

end

```



If you don't declare any `try` blocks, none of the Scientist machinery is invoked and the control value is always returned.



## Making science useful



The examples above will run, but they're not really *doing* anything. The `try` blocks don't run yet and none of the results get published. Replace the default experiment implementation to control execution and reporting:



```ruby

require "scientist/experiment"



class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment



  attr_accessor :name



  def initialize(name)

    @name = name

  end



  def enabled?

    # see "Ramping up experiments" below

    true

  end



  def raised(operation, error)

    # see "In a Scientist callback" below

    p "Operation '#{operation}' failed with error '#{error.inspect}'"

    super # will re-raise

  end



  def publish(result)

    # see "Publishing results" below

    p result

  end

end

```



When `Scientist::Experiment` is included in a class, it automatically sets it as the default implementation via `Scientist::Experiment.set_default`. This `set_default` call is skipped if you include `Scientist::Experiment` in a module.



Now calls to the `science` helper will load instances of `MyExperiment`.



### Controlling comparison



Scientist compares control and candidate values using `==`. To override this behavior, use `compare` to define how to compare observed values instead:



```ruby

class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def users

    science "users" do |e|

      e.use { User.all }         # returns User instances

      e.try { UserService.list } # returns UserService::User instances



      e.compare do |control, candidate|

        control.map(&:login) == candidate.map(&:login)

      end

    end

  end

end

```



If either the control block or candidate block raises an error, Scientist compares the two observations' classes and messages using `==`. To override this behavior, use `compare_errors` to define how to compare observed errors instead:



```ruby

class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def slug_from_login(login)

    science "slug_from_login" do |e|

      e.use { User.slug_from_login login }         # returns String instance or ArgumentError

      e.try { UserService.slug_from_login login }  # returns String instance or ArgumentError



      compare_error_message_and_class = -> (control, candidate) do

        control.class == candidate.class && 

        control.message == candidate.message

      end



      compare_argument_errors = -> (control, candidate) do

        control.class == ArgumentError &&

        candidate.class == ArgumentError &&

        control.message.start_with?("Input has invalid characters") &&

        candidate.message.start_with?("Invalid characters in input") 

      end



      e.compare_errors do |control, candidate|

        compare_error_message_and_class.call(control, candidate) ||

        compare_argument_errors.call(control, candidate)

      end

    end

  end

end

```



### Adding context



Results aren't very useful without some way to identify them. Use the `context` method to add to or retrieve the context for an experiment:



```ruby

science "widget-permissions" do |e|

  e.context :user => user



  e.use { model.check_user(user).valid? }

  e.try { user.can?(:read, model) }

end

```



`context` takes a Symbol-keyed Hash of extra data. The data is available in `Experiment#publish` via the `context` method. If you're using the `science` helper a lot in a class, you can provide a default context:



```ruby

class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def allows?(user)

    science "widget-permissions" do |e|

      e.context :user => user



      e.use { model.check_user(user).valid? }

      e.try { user.can?(:read, model) }

    end

  end



  def destroy

    science "widget-destruction" do |e|

      e.use { old_scary_destroy }

      e.try { new_safe_destroy }

    end

  end



  def default_scientist_context

    { :widget => self }

  end

end

```



The `widget-permissions` and `widget-destruction` experiments will both have a `:widget` key in their contexts.



### Expensive setup



If an experiment requires expensive setup that should only occur when the experiment is going to be run, define it with the `before_run` method:



```ruby

# Code under test modifies this in-place. We want to copy it for the

# candidate code, but only when needed:

value_for_original_code = big_object

value_for_new_code      = nil



science "expensive-but-worthwhile" do |e|

  e.before_run do

    value_for_new_code = big_object.deep_copy

  end

  e.use { original_code(value_for_original_code) }

  e.try { new_code(value_for_new_code) }

end

```



### Keeping it clean



Sometimes you don't want to store the full value for later analysis. For example, an experiment may return `User` instances, but when researching a mismatch, all you care about is the logins. You can define how to clean these values in an experiment:



```ruby

class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def users

    science "users" do |e|

      e.use { User.all }

      e.try { UserService.list }



      e.clean do |value|

        value.map(&:login).sort

      end

    end

  end

end

```



And this cleaned value is available in observations in the final published result:



```ruby

class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment



  # ...



  def publish(result)

    result.control.value         # [, , ]

    result.control.cleaned_value # ["alice", "bob", "carol"]

  end

end

```



Note that the `#clean` method will discard the previous cleaner block if you call it again.  If for some reason you need to access the currently configured cleaner block, `Scientist::Experiment#cleaner` will return the block without further ado.  _(This probably won't come up in normal usage, but comes in handy if you're writing, say, a custom experiment runner that provides default cleaners.)_



The `#clean` method will not be used for comparison of the results, so in the following example it is not possible to remove the `#compare` method without the experiment failing:



```ruby

def user_ids

  science "user_ids" do

    e.use { [1,2,3] }

    e.try { [1,3,2] }

    e.clean { |value| value.sort }

    e.compare { |a, b| a.sort == b.sort }

  end

end

```



### Ignoring mismatches



During the early stages of an experiment, it's possible that some of your code will always generate a mismatch for reasons you know and understand but haven't yet fixed. Instead of these known cases always showing up as mismatches in your metrics or analysis, you can tell an experiment whether or not to ignore a mismatch using the `ignore` method. You may include more than one block if needed:



```ruby

def admin?(user)

  science "widget-permissions" do |e|

    e.use { model.check_user(user).admin? }

    e.try { user.can?(:admin, model) }



    e.ignore { user.staff? } # user is staff, always an admin in the new system

    e.ignore do |control, candidate|

      # new system doesn't handle unconfirmed users yet:

      control && !candidate && !user.confirmed_email?

    end

  end

end

```



The ignore blocks are only called if the *values* don't match. Unless a `compare_errors` comparator is defined, two cases are considered mismatches: a) one observation raising an exception and the other not, b) observations raising exceptions with different classes or messages.



### Enabling/disabling experiments



Sometimes you don't want an experiment to run. Say, disabling a new codepath for anyone who isn't staff. You can disable an experiment by setting a `run_if` block. If this returns `false`, the experiment will merely return the control value. Otherwise, it defers to the experiment's configured `enabled?` method.



```ruby

class DashboardController

  include Scientist



  def dashboard_items

    science "dashboard-items" do |e|

      # only run this experiment for staff members

      e.run_if { current_user.staff? }

      # ...

  end

end

```



### Ramping up experiments



As a scientist, you know it's always important to be able to turn your experiment off, lest it run amok and result in villagers with pitchforks on your doorstep. In order to control whether or not an experiment is enabled, you must include the `enabled?` method in your `Scientist::Experiment` implementation.



```ruby

class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment



  attr_accessor :name, :percent_enabled



  def initialize(name)

    @name = name

    @percent_enabled = 100

  end



  def enabled?

    percent_enabled > 0 && rand(100) < percent_enabled

  end



  # ...



end

```



This code will be invoked for every method with an experiment every time, so be sensitive about its performance. For example, you can store an experiment in the database but wrap it in various levels of caching such as memcache or per-request thread-locals.



### Publishing results



What good is science if you can't publish your results?



You must implement the `publish(result)` method, and can publish data however you like. For example, timing data can be sent to graphite, and mismatches can be placed in a capped collection in redis for debugging later.



The `publish` method is given a `Scientist::Result` instance with its associated `Scientist::Observation`s:



```ruby

class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment



  # ...



  def publish(result)



    # Store the timing for the control value,

    $statsd.timing "science.#{name}.control", result.control.duration

    # for the candidate (only the first, see "Breaking the rules" below,

    $statsd.timing "science.#{name}.candidate", result.candidates.first.duration



    # and counts for match/ignore/mismatch:

    if result.matched?

      $statsd.increment "science.#{name}.matched"

    elsif result.ignored?

      $statsd.increment "science.#{name}.ignored"

    else

      $statsd.increment "science.#{name}.mismatched"

      # Finally, store mismatches in redis so they can be retrieved and examined

      # later on, for debugging and research.

      store_mismatch_data(result)

    end

  end



  def store_mismatch_data(result)

    payload = {

      :name            => name,

      :context         => context,

      :control         => observation_payload(result.control),

      :candidate       => observation_payload(result.candidates.first),

      :execution_order => result.observations.map(&:name)

    }



    key = "science.#{name}.mismatch"

    $redis.lpush key, payload

    $redis.ltrim key, 0, 1000

  end



  def observation_payload(observation)

    if observation.raised?

      {

        :exception => observation.exception.class,

        :message   => observation.exception.message,

        :backtrace => observation.exception.backtrace

      }

    else

      {

        # see "Keeping it clean" above

        :value => observation.cleaned_value

      }

    end

  end

end

```



### Testing



When running your test suite, it's helpful to know that the experimental results always match. To help with testing, Scientist defines a `raise_on_mismatches` class attribute when you include `Scientist::Experiment`. Only do this in your test suite!



To raise on mismatches:



```ruby

class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment

  # ... implementation

end



MyExperiment.raise_on_mismatches = true

```



Scientist will raise a `Scientist::Experiment::MismatchError` exception if any observations don't match.



#### Custom mismatch errors



To instruct Scientist to raise a custom error instead of the default `Scientist::Experiment::MismatchError`:



```ruby

class CustomMismatchError < Scientist::Experiment::MismatchError

  def to_s

    message = "There was a mismatch! Here's the diff:"



    diffs = result.candidates.map do |candidate|

      Diff.new(result.control, candidate)

    end.join("\n")



    "#{message}\n#{diffs}"

  end

end

```



```ruby

science "widget-permissions" do |e|

  e.use { Report.find(id) }

  e.try { ReportService.new.fetch(id) }



  e.raise_with CustomMismatchError

end

```



This allows for pre-processing on mismatch error exception messages.



### Handling errors



#### In candidate code



Scientist rescues and tracks _all_ exceptions raised in a `try` or `use` block, including some where rescuing may cause unexpected behavior (like `SystemExit` or `ScriptError`). To rescue a more restrictive set of exceptions, modify the `RESCUES` list:



```ruby

# default is [Exception]

Scientist::Observation::RESCUES.replace [StandardError]

```



**Timeout ⏲️**: If you're introducing a candidate that could possibly timeout, use caution. ⚠️ While Scientist rescues all exceptions that occur in the candidate block, it *does not* protect you from timeouts, as doing so would be complicated. It would likely require running the candidate code in a background job and tracking the time of a request. We feel the cost of this complexity would outweigh the benefit, so make sure that your code doesn't cause timeouts. This risk can be reduced by running the experiment on a low percentage so that users can (most likely) bypass the experiment by refreshing the page if they hit a timeout. See [Ramping up experiments](#ramping-up-experiments) below for how details on how to set the percentage for your experiment.



#### In a Scientist callback



If an exception is raised within any of Scientist's internal helpers, like `publish`, `compare`, or `clean`, the `raised` method is called with the symbol name of the internal operation that failed and the exception that was raised. The default behavior of `Scientist::Default` is to simply re-raise the exception. Since this halts the experiment entirely, it's often a better idea to handle this error and continue so the experiment as a whole isn't canceled entirely:



```ruby

class MyExperiment

  include Scientist::Experiment



  # ...



  def raised(operation, error)

    InternalErrorTracker.track! "science failure in #{name}: #{operation}", error

  end

end

```



The operations that may be handled here are:



* `:clean` - an exception is raised in a `clean` block

* `:compare` - an exception is raised in a `compare` block

* `:enabled` - an exception is raised in the `enabled?` method

* `:ignore` - an exception is raised in an `ignore` block

* `:publish` - an exception is raised in the `publish` method

* `:run_if` - an exception is raised in a `run_if` block



### Designing an experiment



Because `enabled?` and `run_if` determine when a candidate runs, it's impossible to guarantee that it will run every time. For this reason, Scientist is only safe for wrapping methods that aren't changing data.



When using Scientist, we've found it most useful to modify both the existing and new systems simultaneously anywhere writes happen, and verify the results at read time with `science`. `raise_on_mismatches` has also been useful to ensure that the correct data was written during tests, and reviewing published mismatches has helped us find any situations we overlooked with our production data at runtime. When writing to and reading from two systems, it's also useful to write some data reconciliation scripts to verify and clean up production data alongside any running experiments.



#### Noise and error rates



Keep in mind that Scientist's `try` and `use` blocks run sequentially in random order. As such, any data upon which your code depends may change before the second block is invoked, potentially yielding a mismatch between the candidate and control return values. To calibrate your expectations with respect to [false negatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors) arising from systemic conditions external to your proposed changes, consider starting with an experiment in which both the `try` and `use` blocks invoke the control method. Then proceed with introducing a candidate.



### Finishing an experiment



As your candidate behavior converges on the controls, you'll start thinking about removing an experiment and using the new behavior.



* If there are any ignore blocks, the candidate behavior is *guaranteed* to be different. If this is unacceptable, you'll need to remove the ignore blocks and resolve any ongoing mismatches in behavior until the observations match perfectly every time.

* When removing a read-behavior experiment, it's a good idea to keep any write-side duplication between an old and new system in place until well after the new behavior has been in production, in case you need to roll back.



## Breaking the rules



Sometimes scientists just gotta do weird stuff. We understand.



### Ignoring results entirely



Science is useful even when all you care about is the timing data or even whether or not a new code path blew up. If you have the ability to incrementally control how often an experiment runs via your `enabled?` method, you can use it to silently and carefully test new code paths and ignore the results altogether. You can do this by setting `ignore { true }`, or for greater efficiency, `compare { true }`.



This will still log mismatches if any exceptions are raised, but will disregard the values entirely.



### Trying more than one thing



It's not usually a good idea to try more than one alternative simultaneously. Behavior isn't guaranteed to be isolated and reporting + visualization get quite a bit harder. Still, it's sometimes useful.



To try more than one alternative at once, add names to some `try` blocks:



```ruby

require "scientist"



class MyWidget

  include Scientist



  def allows?(user)

    science "widget-permissions" do |e|

      e.use { model.check_user(user).valid? } # old way



      e.try("api") { user.can?(:read, model) } # new service API

      e.try("raw-sql") { user.can_sql?(:read, model) } # raw query

    end

  end

end

```



When the experiment runs, all candidate behaviors are tested and each candidate observation is compared with the control in turn.



### No control, just candidates



Define the candidates with named `try` blocks, omit a `use`, and pass a candidate name to `run`:



```ruby

experiment = MyExperiment.new("various-ways") do |e|

  e.try("first-way")  { ... }

  e.try("second-way") { ... }

end



experiment.run("second-way")

```



The `science` helper also knows this trick:



```ruby

science "various-ways", run: "first-way" do |e|

  e.try("first-way")  { ... }

  e.try("second-way") { ... }

end

```



#### Providing fake timing data



If you're writing tests that depend on specific timing values, you can provide canned durations using the `fabricate_durations_for_testing_purposes` method, and Scientist will report these in `Scientist::Observation#duration` instead of the actual execution times.



```ruby

science "absolutely-nothing-suspicious-happening-here" do |e|

  e.use { ... } # "control"

  e.try { ... } # "candidate"

  e.fabricate_durations_for_testing_purposes( "control" => 1.0, "candidate" => 0.5 )

end

```



`fabricate_durations_for_testing_purposes` takes a Hash of duration values, keyed by behavior names.  (By default, Scientist uses `"control"` and `"candidate"`, but if you override these as shown in [Trying more than one thing](#trying-more-than-one-thing) or [No control, just candidates](#no-control-just-candidates), use matching names here.)  If a name is not provided, the actual execution time will be reported instead.



_Like `Scientist::Experiment#cleaner`, this probably won't come up in normal usage.  It's here to make it easier to test code that extends Scientist._



### Without including Scientist



If you need to use Scientist in a place where you aren't able to include the Scientist module, you can call `Scientist.run`:



```ruby

Scientist.run "widget-permissions" do |e|

  e.use { model.check_user(user).valid? }

  e.try { user.can?(:read, model) }

end

```



## Hacking



Be on a Unixy box. Make sure a modern Bundler is available. `script/test` runs the unit tests. All development dependencies are installed automatically. Scientist requires Ruby 2.3 or newer.



## Wrappers



- [RealGeeks/lab_tech](https://github.com/RealGeeks/lab_tech) is a Rails engine for using this library by controlling, storing, and analyzing experiment results with ActiveRecord.



## Alternatives



- [daylerees/scientist](https://github.com/daylerees/scientist) (PHP)

- [scientistproject/scientist.net](https://github.com/scientistproject/Scientist.net) (.NET)

- [joealcorn/laboratory](https://github.com/joealcorn/laboratory) (Python)

- [rawls238/Scientist4J](https://github.com/rawls238/Scientist4J) (Java)

- [tomiaijo/scientist](https://github.com/tomiaijo/scientist) (C++)

- [trello/scientist](https://github.com/trello/scientist) (node.js)

- [ziyasal/scientist.js](https://github.com/ziyasal/scientist.js) (node.js, ES6)

- [TrueWill/tzientist](https://github.com/TrueWill/tzientist) (node.js, TypeScript)

- [TrueWill/paleontologist](https://github.com/TrueWill/paleontologist) (Deno, TypeScript)

- [yeller/laboratory](https://github.com/yeller/laboratory) (Clojure)

- [lancew/Scientist](https://github.com/lancew/Scientist) (Perl 5)

- [lancew/ScientistP6](https://github.com/lancew/ScientistP6) (Perl 6)

- [MadcapJake/Test-Lab](https://github.com/MadcapJake/Test-Lab) (Perl 6)

- [cwbriones/scientist](https://github.com/cwbriones/scientist) (Elixir)

- [calavera/go-scientist](https://github.com/calavera/go-scientist) (Go)

- [jelmersnoeck/experiment](https://github.com/jelmersnoeck/experiment) (Go)

- [spoptchev/scientist](https://github.com/spoptchev/scientist) (Kotlin / Java)

- [junkpiano/scientist](https://github.com/junkpiano/scientist) (Swift)

- [serverless scientist](http://serverlessscientist.com/) (AWS Lambda)

- [fightmegg/scientist](https://github.com/fightmegg/scientist) (TypeScript, Browser / Node.js)

- [MisterSpex/misterspex-scientist](https://github.com/MisterSpex/misterspex-scientist) (Java, no dependencies)



## Maintainers



[@jbarnette](https://github.com/jbarnette),

[@jesseplusplus](https://github.com/jesseplusplus),

[@rick](https://github.com/rick),

and [@zerowidth](https://github.com/zerowidth)